Malaysian security officials said yesterday they have received no fresh information of any terrorist threat from US intelligence services following a travel alert issued by Washington days ago.
Security forces worldwide are on guard against a resurgence of activity by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network after a series of attacks on Western targets in Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Morocco in the last week.
Shortly after the bombings in Riyadh on Wednesday, the US Department of State updated advisories to US citizens to exercise caution travelling in East Africa and Malaysia.
But Malaysian security officials said Washington had not given fresh information to suggest any heightened risk specific to Malaysia, and Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has mocked the US for becoming afraid of its own shadow.
"No new intelligence has been passed onto us from anyone," a senior Malaysian security official said yesterday.
His comments tallied with those from US officials who said the advisory was an update of one issued after bomb attacks last October which killed more than 200, mostly Westerners, on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.
The US sources said that advisory had been due to expire, and the renewal was not based on any new information, whereas in the case of Kenya, Washington has warned of "a credible threat."
The US advisory told its citizens to be aware that militant organizations with links to al-Qaeda were operating in Southeast Asia and warned them to particularly exercise "extreme caution" visiting Malaysia's eastern state of Sabah.
In the last two years, largely Muslim Malaysia has arrested over 90 suspected militants, mostly members of Jemaah Islamiah, a Southeast Asian organization led by Indonesians, which has been blamed for the Bali bombings. Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines have also arrested Jemaah Islamiah members.
The greater threat in eastern coastal areas of Sabah, on the northern tip of Borneo island, came from the Abu Sayyaf, a militant-cum-bandit outfit, based in islands off the southern Philippines, just across the Sulu Sea.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
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Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia